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What Needs To Be Done?

Considering all of the problems that bees face today, I want to know, as beekeepers, what you would do to solve these problems? I know you have thought about it, and I know you have figured out what you would do. So, if you had the time, the money, and the resources you needed to do it, please tell me, WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TODAY?

Re: What Needs To Be Done?

I want to know which problem you think is worse, and what you would do to challenge it, and beat it. I am not qualified to make that call. That is why I come to you, the professionals on BeeSource. What would you do, tomorrow morning, if saving the bees was your one and only quest in life, and you had everything you need to attack?

Re: What Needs To Be Done?

Though I will probably get blasted for this answer (since I usually hang out in "treatment free"), Im going to answer kinda like Squarepeg - what Im doing right now. I kinda live by Michael Bush's motto "Everything works if you let it." For my part, I do everything possible to let the bees take care of themselves.

Ensure a wide variety of genes. Starting out I looked for feral, survivor, hygenic, and other "non-factory" raised queens from various sources to create a good base for the gene pool. Not only will their daughters lay from many gene pools, this will promote swarms that will be able to survive in the wild and adapt - hopefully providing a source for more survivor swarms.

Feed - Im not talking about sugar (though there is a time and place for that). Though my bees are in an area with acres of maple, pine, privet, wildflowers, and blackberries, I also have about a 2 acre orchard, 35 acres of clover, sunflowers, and non-sprayed row crops and I rotate plantings of buckwheat in the "dry spells". Put your bees in an area where they can thrive.

Inspect and manipulate regularly. Provide equipment when needed and remove when its not. Stagger frames to discourage swarming. vent when its hot, wrap when its too cold.

Basically the bees know what they are doing and we only weaken their survivability when we do so many treatments - they come to rely on them and do not adapt defences. "Everything works if you let it."

Re: What Needs To Be Done?

Humor aside, I consider the varroa mite to be the #1 bane of modern beekeeping. (Granted, I don't have SHB here.) In addition to causing direct mortality, mites vector numerous viruses and generally weaken bees making them more likely to succumb to stress or disease. All current treatments have drawbacks in that they must be optimally timed and repeated to be effective, and they are also hard on bees, potentially causing brood kill, queen loss, and/or general disruption of the colony.

I like the philosophy of the treatment-free folks and support efforts to speed the evolution of the bee to adapt to the mite, but there is a difference between bees surviving without treatment and bees truly thriving in the presence of mites. VSH is good, but VSH also means the bees are exerting energy removing their own brood, brood which required considerable resources to raise. We may get to a point where the arms race is a bit more even (i.e. most bees can survive without treatment), but a better solution, if it could be created, would be a treatment that kills 100% of mites in the hive, has no toxicity to humans or bees, and does not allow mites to become resistant.

Re: What Needs To Be Done?

My thinking has been along the lines of a massive cross breeding program. where the best of the best from breeders everywhere are brought together and crossed to each other. This coupled with extremely high selection pressure. Basically it is the opposite of inbreeding while still selecting for desirable traits. Build a massive population of colonies that are all highly selected.

Re: What Needs To Be Done?

Mites are of course a huge concern. Equally troubling to me is loss of habitat and diverse forage opportunities. What we do to improve our own apiaries in this regard also helps native pollinators which is as far as I am concerned is a good thing.

To answer your rather specific question - not using anything but composted manure, kitchen waste, straw and wood ashes on my garden.

Pruning my 5-7 acres of wild blueberries by mowing (and perhaps burning this spring) but without the use of herbicides.

Using only dormant oil on my apple trees.

Using "soft" treatments where testing shows they are needed for control of Varroa in my bee hives.

I've stopped regular treatments of Fumadil. And I do not prophetically treat for AFB but recent reports of AFB somewhat close to me may have me reconsider this.

Enhancing the windrow around the blueberry field. (Gather rose hips as I come across them and toss them in to the windrow)

Leaving a few dead trees standing. Likewise leaving some exposed clay in the blueberry field uncovered to encourage ground dwelling native pollinators.

Re: What Needs To Be Done?

this gives you a decimal fraction rather than the 1/16 sort of thing. Btu to know what 1/16 is in decimal you simply do the math. 1/16 is really saying 1 divided by 16. So whip out a calculator or get some 6th grader to do the math for you. It comes out to 0.0625. You can do the same with any fraction. 1/4 is 1 divided by 4 or 0.25.

10 mm is 0.3937 inches. 3/8 is 0.375. about 2/100 of a difference.

YOu can simply make yourself a cheat sheet based upon 1/16th increments if you want.

1/16= 0.0625
1/8= 0.125
3/16= 0.1875
etc.

You can also remember that 1/16th of an inch is 1.5875 round it up to 1.6 or just a bit over one and a half mm per 16th of an inch. this woudl then say that 1 inch equals 25.6 mm when in actuality it is 25.4 or two tenths of an inch off. In reality that difference is not going to matter.